Smartphone App Development:
Things You Should Know to Develop an App

As the time-proven experts of the digital industry who have delivered hundreds of smartphone and desktop
solutions, we would like to share with you some of the basic things you should know before starting the
smartphone development project of your own. Everything starts with a simple idea. But to bring this idea
to life, you need to go through many challenges.

Case Studies

Do You Need to Know How to Code?

Well, you need to have at least one person in your team who knows what is what in the internet
technologies. Software programming is a complex process that requires a lot of skills and knowledge of
different programming languages, frameworks, design tools and other technologies. Of course, you can
learn the basics of coding, but it will take time. A smartphone application is a combination of many
details, and you have to make sure that each detail works perfectly well and connects to another.
Graphics is also an important aspect, so having an experienced designer in your team is a must, as well
as someone who can create different sounds in tunes in case it’s a game you want to develop. And keep in
mind that not only do you have to know the technologies, but you also have to be creative. Both
qualities are essential if you want your product to stand out.

1

Smartphone App Development

As we have already said, every development process starts with a brilliant idea. But once the
eureka moment has passed, come the time of hard work and decision-making. You should be ready
that it is a real challenge to create a digital solution that is intuitive and engaging,
providing great experience to a wide audience of smartphone users. To stand out, your program
should be in line with feature-rich, efficient and high-quality apps available on the market,
but at the same time offer something unique.

2

Is Development Easy?

Software development process involves many stages from planning the software to designing the
screens and optimising the user interfaces. Making every step, you should crave for simplicity,
cutting off inessential features and content. It may take weeks to design a simple icon, but if
you do a quality job, your efforts and investments will pay off. So if you still wish to enter
the amazing world of software development, here are some things you need to know.

Our Achievements:

322 App Development Projects

413 Mobile Applications

75 Enterprise Software Solutions

Which Platform to Develop for First?

One of the first questions that may arise when you start designing your mobile software is what
mobile platform to choose.

As professional developers with a broad experience, we would recommend
you to start with iOS development, because this smartphone operating system is more stable and
secure, supporting only two devices - iPhone and iPad - instead of hundreds, as in the case of
Android. Building your program for iOS, you can test that everything works fine using a single
device, and then when you have finished polishing your iOS app, you can transfer it to Android.

Why IOS Is Great For Beginners

Our experts believe that iOS is a good choice for amateur developers. It has an easy interface that
will not be hard to understand for a new designer. Ad the fact that iOS only runs two Apple devices
- iPhone and iPad - is another advantage of the operating system. Apple provides developers with an
intuitive, integrated environment that enables you to combine the elements you want into great user
experiences. The usability of the instruments for iOS app development is the main reason why almost
all apps are first released on iOS, and only then come to Android and other platforms.

This depends on the type of the software you wish to create: user logins, push
notifications, gaming, e-commerce tools, integration with payment systems, social media
functionality, productivity tools, etc. Most apps now are integrated with social media
channels, which enables the users to share posts and send them to friends, so do not
forget to include this feature into your software requirement specification.

We have asked this question to our developers and here is what they say: the mistake
that many beginning developers make is not paying enough attention to user interface
design. Not long ago at our development company, we have redesigned all our applications
for both Android and iOS, and notice that the number of users and time spent in the
program started to grow. So to make the customers use your app, make sure that it is
engaging, beautifully looking and helpful.

And you should be ready that after you have finished coding and development, there is
still much work ahead. It is time to see what you customer likes and what make them
leave, using analytical tools, improve the app’s functionality to keep up with the
latest trends and fix bugs and glitches that may accidentally appear. We would recommend
you to regularly browse through software stores to look wat the most popular apps look
like and how your competitors perform. Make everything possible to get to the top.
Trends change all the time, for example, when iOS was first released, naturalistic
graphics view in trend. Now minimalism is all the rage. So be ready to stay abreast of
these changes.

Smartphone Application Testing

App testing is one more stage of development you should not ignore. Before releasing your app and
testing it in the field, you should run rigorous tests using emulators - tools that enable you to test
apps on different smartphone devices without physical access.

Here are some of the most popular
emulators for different mobile operating systems that you can use to test your app:

Android SDK Emulator - an official emulator that reflects all the features of the
software and
hardware of the devices running Android (except for the phone calls).

Google Android Emulator - you can install this emulator as a simple desktop app,
without
downloading the full Android SDK, which may take a lot of time and memory space. This emulator
is used for Android apps.

MobiOne - this is a smartphone Web integrated development environment for Windows
that allows
you to program, fix, test, implement and install mobile web apps to devices running on different
platforms including iOS, Android, Blackberry and others.

iPhoney - a web browsing environment simulator powered by Safari. It is best if you
develop a
website and want to test how it looks and feels like on iPhone. It is not an iPhone simulator,
but still an efficient tool for web development experts who want to test smartphone websites. It
supports the latest iOS generations.

TestiPhone - another web browser simulator for iPhone web apps. The tools work with
IE, Firefox
and Safari browsers.

BlackBerry Simulator - actually, there are lots of official BlackBerry simulators
to choose from
if you want to test how your product will work with BlackBerry's software, display and keyboard.

Windows UI Automation - if you want to test apps that use the Microsoft UI
Automation technology
you should make sure that you have Windows Automation API 3.0 on your computer. It is
pre-installed on Windows 7 and later versions of the system. If your systems other than Windows,
you can download it from the Microsoft official site.

Clients

Things App Users Do Not Like

And here is the final touch - thing to avoid when planning your app. Without a doubt, apps make life
easier, allowing us to create shopping lists on the go, add events to the calendar, watch a film while
on commute or chat with friends. But still there are many things about apps that annoy us, sometimes
driving us to uninstall particular applications. Our experts have come up with the list of most popular
user complaints about smartphone applications:

Too many emails spamming their boxes

Intrusive push notifications

When the software is not updated and

Frequent requests to rate the app

Obligatory connection to Facebook when it is not necessary for the functionality of the app

Bugs are not fixed

Full-screen ads

Not optimised content, especially texts

Non-retina apps

Frequent requests to follow the software owner’s accounts on social media

Rely on Smartphone Development Experts

Over the years, our digital agency has delivered hundreds of successful projects for internationally
recognised brands and startups across the world and different industries. We are not afraid of
challenges and can tackle even the most complex tasks.

Our mobile experts always take time to investigate your business to ensure that the product
perfectly fits into your goals, guaranteeing that every aspect of the program is polished to
perfection. Our team of enthusiastic and skilful specialists stay strong in the pursuit of our
goals, which are efficiency, usability and great designs that work for your success.

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